Current NIH Trainees

John Bauer, NIH Trainee 2023-2025
jmbauer@umass.edu
Graduate Program: Chemistry
Lab: Andrews
Research: Developing interspecies genetic circuits in diverse microbial consortia for remediating wastewater contaminants.

Trisha Brady, NIH Trainee 2022-2024
twbrady@umass.edu
Graduate Program: Chemistry
Lab: Jeanne Hardy & Richard Vachet
Research: Investigating the behavior and tertiary/quaternary structure of caspase-9 conformers using ion mobility coupled with mass spectrometry (IM-MS).

Jay English, NIH Trainee 2022-2024
jeenglish@umass.edu
Graduate Program: MCB
Lab: ChangHui Pak
Research: Synaptopathic mechanisms of autism spectrum disorders including mis regulated alternative splicing and its effects on synaptic function in this disorder background.

Adam Fish, NIH Trainee 2022-2024
ajfish@umass.edu
Graduate Program: Chemical Engineering
Lab: Ashish Kulkarni
Research: Developing physiologically relevant in vitro disease models to screen novel nanotherapeutics for inflammatory diseases.

Dylan Frank, NIH Trainee 2023-2025
dafrank@umass.edu
Graduate Program: MCB
Lab: Peter Chien
Research: How the Caulobacter crescentus protein LotP regulates Lon protease activity

Kaito Hioki, NIH Trainee 2022-2024
khioki@umass.edu
Graduate Program: MCB
Lab: Leonid Pobezinsky
Research: Characterizing immune cells involved in the transfer of cellular material from tumor cells and investigating the mechanisms or functional impact of the phenomenon.

Pamelia Lim, NIH Trainee 2022-2024
lim@umass.edu
Graduate Program: MCB
Lab: Alissa Rothchild
Research: Alveolar macrophage response to Mycobacterium tuberculosis in the early stages of infection.

Beatriz Martinez-Martin, NIH Trainee 2023-2025
bmartinezmar@umass.edu
Graduate Program: MCB
Lab: ChangHui Pak & Yubing Sun
Research: Molecular mechanisms engineered extracellular matrices impact cell fate in the development of cerebral brain organoids & neurodevelopment & engineer tools to help organoids develop at a more representative level.

Minelise Rivera De Jesus, NIH Trainee 2023-2024
mriveradejes@umass.edu
Graduate Program: Chemistry
Lab: Thayumanavan
Research: Development of polymeric delivery systems, drug delivery

William Witt, NIH Trainee 2023-2024
wwitt@umass.edu
Graduate Program: Chemistry
Lab: Timme-Laragy
Research: Redox development focusing on developing cellular models for PFAS- specific oxidative stress.

Current UMass Fellows

Ryan Lu, UMass Fellow 2022-2024
hunghsunlu@umass.edu
Graduate Program: Chemistry
Lab: Thayumanavan
Research: Development of photocrosslinked RNA delivery system to overcome extracellular
and intracellular barriers in the systemic delivery.

Oguz Can Koc, UMass Fellow 2023-2025
okoc@umass.edu
Graduate Program: MCB
Lab: Fissore/Stratton
Research: Investigating the function and calcium frequency-dependency of CaMKII in mouse eggs and early embryos.

Lucca Mancilio, UMass Fellow 2023-2025
lmancilio@umass.edu
Graduate Program: Micro
Lab: Butler
Research: Investigating biofilm systems applied to coupled water remediation and resource recovery.

Gabrielle Villafana, UMass Fellow 2023-2025
gvillafana@umass.edu
Graduate Program: MCB
Lab: Jennifer Rauch
Research: Developing inhibitors for LRP1 to reduce the spread of tau in in vivo disease models.

Alexandra Weinhofer, UMass Fellow 2023-2025
aweinhofer@umass.edu
Graduate Program: PSE
Lab: Santore
Research: Bacterial capture on polymeric substrates under flow conditions specifically to decouple the physico-chemical and mechanical interaction